CHAPTER IV.
The beauty of Rose was the first thing that struck him upon his entrance. The impression was so sudden, and so lively, that, for a few minutes, the election, and all that belonged to it, vanished from his memory. The politeness of a county candidate made him appear, in other houses, charmed with father, mother, son, and daughter; but in this cottage there was no occasion for dissimulation; he was really pleased with each individual of the family. The natural feelings of the heart were touched. The ambitious man forgot all his schemes, and all his cares, in the contemplation of this humble picture of happiness and content; and the baronet conversed a full quarter of an hour with farmer Gray, before he relapsed into himself.
“How much happier,” thought he, “are these people than I am, or than I ever have been! They are contented in obscurity; I was discontented even in the full blaze of celebrity. But my fate is fixed. I embarked on the sea of politics as thoughtlessly as if it were only on a party of pleasure: now I am chained to the oar, and a galley-slave cannot be more wretched.”
Perhaps the beauty of Rose had some share in exciting Sir Hyacinth’s sudden taste for rural felicity. It is certain he at first expressed more disappointment at hearing she would not go to the ball, than at being told her father and brothers could not vote for him. Farmer Gray, who was as independent in his principles as in his circumstances, honestly answered the baronet, that he thought Mr. Molyneux the fittest man to represent the county; and that it was for him he should therefore vote. Sir Hyacinth tried all his powers of persuasion in vain, and he left the cottage mortified and melancholy.
He met Simon O’Dougherty when he had driven a few miles from the door; and, in a tone of much pique and displeasure, reproached him for having deceived him into a belief that the Grays were his friends. Simon was rather embarrassed; but the genius of gossiping had luckily just supplied him with a hint, by which he could extricate himself from this difficulty.
“The fault is all your own, if I may make so free as to tell you so. Sir Hyacinth O’Brien,” said he, “as capital an electioneerer as you are, I’ll engage I’ll find one that shall outdo you here. Send me and Stafford back again this minute to Rosanna, and we’ll bring you the three votes as dead as crows in an hour’s time, or my name is not O’Dougherty now.”
“I protest, Mr. O’Dougherty, I do not understand you.”
“Then let me whisper half a word in your ear, Sir Hyacinth, and I’ll make you sensible I’m right.” Simon winked most significantly, and looked wondrous wise; then stretching himself half off his horse into the gig to gain Sir Hyacinth’s ear, he whispered that he knew, from the best authority, Stafford was in love with Gray’s pretty daughter, Rose, and that Rose had no dislike to him; that she was all in all to her father and brothers, and of course could and would secure their votes, if properly spoken to.
This intelligence did not immediately produce the pleasing change of countenance which might have been expected. Sir Hyacinth coldly replied, he could not spare Stafford at present, and drove on. The genius of gossiping, according to her usual custom, had exaggerated considerably in her report. Stafford was attached to Rose, but had never yet told her so; and as to Rose, we might perhaps have known all her mind, if Sir Hyacinth’s gig had not appeared just as she was seated on her father’s knee, and going to tell him her reasons for wishing to go to the ball.
Stafford acted in the capacity of house-steward to the baronet; and had the management of all his master’s unmanageable servants. He had brought with him, from England, ideas of order and punctuality, which were somewhat new, and extremely troublesome to the domestics at Hyacinth-hall: consequently he was much disliked by them; and not only by them but by most of the country people in the neighbourhood, who imagined he had a strong predilection in favour of every thing that was English, and an undisguised contempt for all that was Irish. They, however, perceived that this prejudice against the Irish admitted of exceptions: the family of the Grays, Stafford acknowledged, were almost as orderly, punctual, industrious, and agreeable, as if they had been born in England. This was matter of so much surprise to him, that he could not forbear going at every leisure hour to the mill or the cottage of Rosanna, to convince himself that such things could actually be in Ireland. He bought all the flour for the hall at Rosanna-mill; and Rose supplied the housekeeper constantly with poultry; so that his master’s business continually obliged Stafford to repeat his visits; and every time he went to Gray’s cottage, he thought it more and more like an English farm-house, and imagined Rose every day looked more like an Englishwoman than any thing else. What a pity she was not born the other side of the water; for then his mother and friends, in Warwickshire, could never have made any objection to her. But, she being an Irishwoman, they would for certain never fancy her. He had oftentimes heard them as good as say, that it would break their hearts if he was to marry and settle amongst the bogs and the wild Irish.
This recollection of his friends’ prejudices at first deterred Stafford from thinking of marrying Rose; but it sometimes happens that reflection upon the prejudices of others shows us the folly of our own, and so it was in the present instance. Stafford wrote frequently to his friends in Warwickshire, to assure them that they had quite wrong notions of Ireland; that all Ireland was not a bog; that there were several well-grown trees in the parts he had visited; that there were some as pretty villages as you could wish to see any where, only that they called them towns; that the men, though some of them still wear brogues, were more hospitable to strangers than the English; and that the women, when not smoke-dried, were some of the handsomest he had seen, especially one Rose or Rosamond Gray, who was also the best and most agreeable girl he had ever known; though it was almost a sin to say so much of one who was not an Englishwoman born.
Much more in the same strain Stafford wrote to his mother; who, in reply to these letters, “besought him to consider well what he was about, before he suffered himself to begin falling desperately in love with this Rose or Rosamond Gray, or any Irishwoman whatsoever; who, having been bred in a mud-walled cabin, could never be expected to turn out at the long run equal to a true-born Englishwoman, bred in a slated house.”
Stafford’s notions had been so much enlarged by his travel, that he could not avoid smiling at some passages in his mother’s epistle; yet he so far agreed with her in opinion as to think it prudent not to begin falling desperately in love with any woman, whether Irish or English, till he was thoroughly acquainted with her temper and disposition. He therefore prudently forbore, that is to say, as much as he could forbear, to show any signs of his attachment to Rose, till he had full opportunity of forming a decisive judgment of her character.
This he had now in his power. He saw that his master was struck with the fair Rosamond’s charms; and he knew that Sir Hyacinth would pursue his purpose with no common perseverance. His heart beat with joy, when the card which brought her refusal arrived. He read it over and over again; and at last put it into his bosom, close to his heart. “Rose is a good daughter,” said he to himself; “and that is a sign that she will make a good wife. She is too innocent to see or suspect that master has taken a fancy to her, but she is right to do as her prudent, affectionate father advises. I never loved that farmer Gray so well, in all my whole life, as at this instant.”
Stafford was interrupted in his reverie by his master; who, in an angry voice, called for him to inquire why he had not, according to his orders, served out some oats for his horses the preceding day. The truth was, that anxiety about Rose and the ball had made him totally forget the oats. Stafford coloured a good deal, confessed that he had done very wrong to forget the oats, but that he would go to the granary immediately, and serve them out to the groom. Perhaps Stafford’s usual exactness might have rendered his omission pardonable to any less irritable and peremptory master than Sir H. O’Brien.
When Sterne once heard a master severely reprimanding a servant for some trifling fault, he said to the gentleman, “My dear sir, we should not expect to have every virtue under the sun for 20l. a-year.”
Sir Hyacinth O’Brien expected to have them for merely the promise of 20l. a-year. Though he never punctually paid his servants’ wages, he abused them most insolently whenever he was in a passion. Upon the present occasion, his ill-humour was heightened by jealousy.
“I wish, sir,” cried he to Stafford, after pouring forth a volley of oaths, “you would mind your business, and not run after objects that are not fit for you. You are become good for nothing of late; careless, insolent, and not fit to be trusted.”
Stafford bore all that his master said till he came to the words not fit to be trusted; but the moment those were uttered, he could no longer command himself; he threw down the great key of the granary, which he held in his hand, and exclaimed, “Not fit to be trusted! Is this the reward of all my services? Not fit to be trusted! Then I have no business here.”
“The sooner you go the better, sir,” cried the angry baronet, who, at this instant, desired nothing more than to get him out of his way. “You had best set off for England directly: I have no farther occasion for your services.”
Stafford said not a word more, but retired from his master’s presence to conceal his emotion; and, when he was alone, burst into tears, repeating to himself, “So this is the reward of all my services!”
When Sir Hyacinth’s passion cooled, he reflected that seven years’ wages were due to Stafford; and as it was not convenient to him at this election time to part with so much ready money, he resolved to compromise. It was not from any sense of justice; therefore it must be said he had the meanness to apologize to his steward, and to hint that he was welcome to remain, if he pleased, in his service.
Satisfied by this explanation, and by the condescension with which it was given, Stafford’s affection for his master returned with all its wonted force: and he resumed his former occupations about the house with redoubled activity. He waited only till he could be spared for a day to go to Rosanna, and make his proposal for Rose. Her behaviour concerning the ball convinced him that his mother’s prejudices against Irishwomen were ill-founded. Whilst his mind was in this state, his master one morning sent for him, and told him that it was absolutely necessary he should go to a neighbouring county, to some persons who were freeholders, and whose votes might turn the election. The business would only occupy a few days, Sir Hyacinth said; and Stafford willingly undertook it.
The gentlemen to whom Stafford had letters were not at home, and he was detained above a fortnight. When he returned, he took a road which led by Rosanna, that he might at least have the pleasure of seeing Rose for a few minutes; but when he called at the cottage, to his utter surprise, he was refused admittance. Being naturally of a warm temper, and not deficient in pride, his first impulse was to turn his horse’s head, and gallop off: but, checking his emotion, he determined not to leave the place till he should discover the cause of this change of conduct. He considered that none of this family had formerly treated him with caprice or duplicity; it was therefore improbable they should suddenly alter their conduct towards him, unless they had reason to believe that they had some sufficient cause. He rode immediately to a field where he saw some labourers at work. Farmer Gray was with them. Stafford leaped from his horse, and, with an air of friendly honesty, held out his hand, saying, “I can’t believe you mean to affront me: tell me what is the reason I am not to be let into your house, my good friend?”
Gray leaned upon his stick, and, after looking at him for a moment, replied, “We have been too hasty, I see: we have had no cause of quarrel with you, Stafford: you could never look at me with that honest countenance, if you had any hand in this business.”
“What business?” cried Stafford.
“Walk home with me, out of the hearing of these people, and you shall know.”
As they walked towards his cottage, Gray took out his great leather pocket-book, and searched for a letter. “Pray, Stafford,” said he, “did you, about ten days ago, send my girl a melon?”
“Yes; one of my own raising. I left it with the gardener, to be sent to her with my best respects and services; and a message intimating to say that I was sorry my master’s business required I should take a journey, and could not see her for a few days, or something that way.”
“No such message came; only your services, the melon, and this note. I declare,” continued Gray, looking at Stafford whilst he read the letter, “he turns as pale as my wife herself did when I showed it to her!”
Stafford, indeed, grew pale with anger. It was a billet-doux from his master to Rose, which Sir Hyacinth entreated might be kept secret, promising to make her fortune and marry her well, if she would only have compassion upon a man who adored and was dying for her, &c.
“I will never see my master again,” exclaimed Stafford. “I could not see him without the danger of doing something that I might not forgive myself. He a gentleman! He a gentleman! I’ll gallop off and leave his letters, and his horse, with some of his people. I’ll never see him again. If he does not pay me a farthing of my seven years’ wages, I don’t care; I will not sleep in his house another night. He a gentleman!”
Farmer Gray was delighted by Stafford’s generous indignation; which appeared the more striking, as his manner was usually sober, and remarkably civil.
All this happened at two o’clock in the afternoon; and the evening of the same day he returned to Rosanna. Rose was sitting at work, in the seat of the cottage window. When she saw him at the little white gate, her colour gave notice to her brothers who was coming, and they ran out to meet him.
“You ought to shut your doors against me now, instead of running out to meet me,” said he; “for I am not clear that I have a farthing in the world, except what is in this portmanteau. I have been fool enough to leave all I have earned in the hands of a gentleman, who can give me only his bond for my wages. But I am glad I am out of his house, at any rate.”
“And I am glad you are in mine,” said farmer Gray, receiving him with a warmth of hospitality which brought tears of gratitude into Stafford’s eyes. Rose smiled upon her father, and said nothing; but set him his arm-chair, and was very busy arranging the tea-table. Mrs. Gray beckoned to her guest, and made him sit down beside her; telling him he should have as good tea at Rosanna as ever he had in Warwickshire; “and out of Staffordshire ware, too,” said she, taking her best Wedgwood teacups and saucers out of a cupboard.
Robin, who was naturally gay and fond of rallying his friends, could not forbear affecting to express his surprise at Stafford’s preferring an Irishwoman, of all women in the world. “Are you quite sure, Stafford,” said he, “that you are not mistaken? Are you sure my sister has not wings on her shoulders?”
“Have you done now, Robin?” said his mother; who saw that Stafford was a good deal abashed, and had no answer ready. “If Mr. Stafford had a prejudice against us Irish, so much the more honourable for my Rose to have conquered it; and, as to wings, they would have been no shame to us natives, supposing we had them; and of course it was no affront to attribute them to us. Have not the angels themselves wings?”
A timely joke is sometimes a real blessing; and so Stafford felt it at this instant: his bashfulness vanished by degrees, and Robin rallied him no more. “I had no idea,” said he, “how easy it is to put an Englishman out of countenance in the company of his mistress.”
This was a most happy evening at Rosanna. After Rose retired, which she soon did, to see after the household affairs, her father spoke in the kindest manner to Stafford. “Mr. Stafford,” said he, “if you tell me that you are able to maintain my girl in the way of life she is in now, you shall have her: this, in my opinion and in hers, is the happiest life for those who have been bred to it. I would rather see Rose matched to an honest, industrious, good-humoured man, like yourself, whom she can love, than see her the wife of a man as grand as Sir Hyacinth O’Brien. For, to the best of my opinion, it is not the being born to a great estate that can make a man content or even rich: I think myself a richer man this minute than Sir Hyacinth; for I owe no man any thing, am my own master, and can give a little matter both to child and stranger. But your head is very naturally running upon Rose, and not upon my moralizing. All I have to say is, win her and wear her; and, as to the rest, even if Sir Hyacinth never pays you your own, that shall not stop your wedding. My sons are good lads, and you and Rose shall never want, whilst the mill of Rosanna is going.”
This generosity quite overpowered Stafford. Generosity is one of the characteristics of the Irish. It not only touched but surprised the Englishman; who, amongst the same rank of his own countrymen, had been accustomed to strict honesty in their dealings, but seldom to this warmth of friendship and forgetfulness of all selfish considerations. It was some minutes before he could articulate a syllable; but, after shaking his intended father-in-law’s hand with that violence which expresses so much to English feelings, he said, “I thank you heartily; and, if I live to the age of Methusalem, shall never forget this. A friend in need is a friend indeed. But I will not live upon yours or your good sons’ earnings; that would not be fair dealing, or like what I’ve been bred up to think handsome. It is a sad thing for me that this master of mine can give me nothing, for my seven years’ service, but this scrap of paper (taking out of his pocket-book a bond of Sir Hyacinth’s). But my mother, though she has her prejudices, and is very stiff about them, being an elderly woman, and never going out of England, or even beyond the parish in which she was born, yet she is kind-hearted; and I cannot think will refuse to help me, or that she will cross me in marriage, when she knows the thing is determined; so I shall write to her before I sleep, and wish I could but enclose in the cover of my letter the picture of Rose, which would be better than all I could say. But no picture would do her justice. I don’t mean a compliment, like those Sir Hyacinth paid to her face, but only the plain truth. I mean that a picture could never make my mother understand how good, and sweet-tempered, and modest, Rose is. Mother has a world of prejudices; but she is a good woman, and will prove herself so to me, I make no doubt.”
Stafford wrote to his mother a long letter, and received, in a fortnight afterwards, this short answer:
“Son George, I warned you not to fall in love with an Irishwoman, to which I told you I could never give my consent.
“As you bake, so you must brew. Your sister Dolly is marrying too, and setting up a shop in Warwick, by my advice and consent: all the money I can spare I must give, as in reason, to her who is a dutiful child; and mean, with her and grand-children, if God please, to pass my latter days, as fitting, in this parish of Little Sonchy, in Old England, where I was born and bred. Wishing you may not repent, or starve, or so forth, which please to let me know,
“I am your affectionate mother,
“DOROTHY STAFFORD.”
All Stafford’s hopes were confounded by this letter: he put it into farmer Gray’s hands, without saying a word; then drew his chair away from Rose, hid his face in his hands, and never spoke or heard one word that was saying round about him for full half an hour; till, at last, he was roused by his friend Robin, who, clapping him on his back, said, “Come, Stafford, English pride won’t do with us; this is all to punish you for refusing to share and share alike with us in the mill of Rosanna, which is what you must and shall do now, for Rose’s sake, if not for ours or your own. Come, say done.”
Stafford could not help being moved. All the family, except Rose, joined in these generous entreaties; and her silence said even more than their words. Dinner was on the table before this amicable contest was settled, and Robin insisted upon his drinking a toast with him, in Irish ale; which was, “Rose Gray, and Rosanna-mill.”
The glass was just filled and the toast pronounced, when in came one of Gray’s workmen, in an indescribable perspiration and rage.
“Master Robin, master John! Master,” cried he, “we are all ruined! The mill and all—”
“The mill!” exclaimed every body starting up.
“Ay, the mill: it’s all over with it, and with us: not a turn more will Rosanna-mill ever take for me or you; not a turn,” continued he, wiping his forehead with his arm, and hiding by the same motion his eyes, which ran over with tears.
“It’s all that thief Hopkins’s doing. May every guinea he touches, and every shilling, and tester, and penny itself, blister his fingers, from this day forward and for evermore!”
“But what has he done to the mill?”
“May every guinea, shilling, tester, and penny he looks upon, from this day forth for evermore, be a blight to his eyes, and a canker to his heart! But I can’t wish him a worse canker than what he has there already. Yes, he has a canker at heart! Is not he eaten up with envy? as all who look at him may read in that evil eye. Bad luck to the hour when it fixed on the mill of Rosanna!”
“But what has he done to the mill? Take it patiently, and tell us quietly,” said farmer Gray, “and do not curse the man any more.”
“Not curse the man! Take it quietly, master! Is it the time to take it quietly, when he is at the present minute carrying off every drop of water from our mill-course? so he is the villain!”
At these words, Stafford seized his oak stick, and sprang towards the door. Robin and John eagerly followed: but, as they passed their father, he laid a hand on each, and called to Stafford to stop. At his respected voice they all paused. “My children,” said he, “what are you going to do? No violence. No violence. You shall have justice, boys, depend upon it; we will not let ourselves be oppressed. If Mr. Hopkins were ten times as great, and twenty times as tyrannical as he is, we shall have justice; the law will reach him: but we must take care and do nothing in anger. Therefore, I charge you, let me speak to him, and do you keep your tempers whatever passes. May be, all this is only a mistake: perhaps Mr. Hopkins is only making drains for his own meadow; or, may be, is going to flood it, and does not know, till we tell him, that he is emptying our water-course.”
“He can’t but know it! He can’t but know it! He’s’ cute enough, and too ‘cute,” muttered Paddy, as he led the way to the mill. Stafford and the two brothers followed their father respectfully; admiring his moderation, and resolving to imitate it if they possibly could.
Mr. Hopkins was stationed cautiously on the boundary of his own land. “There he is, mounted on the back of the ditch, enjoying the mischief all he can!” cried Paddy. “And hark! He is whistling, whilst our stream is running away from us. May I never cross myself again, if I would not, rather than the best shirt ever I had to my back, push him into the mud, as he deserves, this very minute! And, if it wasn’t for my master here, it’s what I’d do, before I drew breath again.”
Farmer Gray restrained Paddy’s indignation with some difficulty; and advancing calmly towards Mr. Hopkins, he remonstrated with him in a mild tone. “Surely, Mr. Hopkins,” said he, “you cannot mean to do us such an injury as to stop our mill?”
“I have not laid a finger on your mill,” replied Hopkins, with a malicious smile. “If your man there,” pointing to Paddy, “could prove my having laid a finger upon it, you might have your action of trespass; but I am no trespasser; I stand on my own land, and have a right to water my own meadow; and moreover have witnesses to prove that, for ten years last past, while the mill of Rosanna was in Simon O’Dougherty’s hands, the water-course was never full, and the mill was in disuse. The stream runs against you now, and so does the law, gentlemen. I have the best counsel’s opinion in Ireland to back me. Take your remedy, when and where you can find it. Good morning to you.”
Without listening to one word more, Mr. Hopkins hastily withdrew: for he had no small apprehensions that Paddy, whose threats he had overheard, and whose eyes sparkled with rage, might execute upon him that species of prompt justice which no quibbling can evade.
“Do not be disheartened, my dear boys,” said farmer Gray to his sons, who were watching with mournful earnestness the slackened motion of their water-wheel. “Saddle my horse for me, John; and get yourselves ready, both of you, to come with me to Counsellor Molyneux.”
“Oh! father,” said John, “there is no use in going to him; for he is one of the candidates, you know, and Mr. Hopkins has a great many votes.”
“No matter for that,” said Gray: “Mr. Molyneux will do justice; that is my opinion of him. If he was another sort of man, I would not trouble myself to go near him, nor stoop to ask his advice: but my opinion of him is, that he is above doing a dirty action, for votes or any thing else; and I am convinced his own interest will not weigh a grain of dust in the balance against justice. Saddle the horses, boy.”
His sons saddled the horses; and all the way the farmer was riding he continued trying to keep up the spirits of his sons, by assurances that if Counsellor Molyneux would take their affair in hand, there would be an end of all difficulty.
“He is not one of those justices of the peace,” continued he, “who will huddle half a dozen poor fellows into jail without law or equity. He is not a man who goes into parliament, saying one thing, and who comes out saying another. He is not, like, our friend Sir Hyacinth O’Brien, forced to sell tongue, and brains, and conscience, to keep his head above water. In short, he is a man who dares to be the same, and can moreover afford to be the same, at election time as at any other time; for which reason, I dare to go to him now in this our distress, although, I have to complain of a man who has forty-six votes, which is the number, they say, Mr. Hopkins can command.”
Whilst farmer Gray was thus pronouncing a panegyric on Counsellor Molyneux, for the comfort of John and Robin, Stafford was trying to console Rose and her mother, who were struck with sorrow and dismay, at the news of the mill’s being stopped. Stafford had himself almost as much need of consolation as they; for he foresaw it was impossible he should at present be united to his dear Rose. All that her generous brothers had to offer was a share in the mill. The father had his farm, but this must serve for the support of the whole family; and how could Stafford become a burden to them, now that they would be poor, when he could not bring himself to be dependent upon them, even when they were, comparatively speaking, rich?